Halo Infinite / Shadows of Reach theory

Games Halo Infinite
1

So the new novel coming out - Halo: Shadow of Reach takes us back to Reach, more specifically Castle base. So I have some theories related to past revelations about Infinite and what the novel might contain.

A short while ago there was an uncovered Easter Egg uncovered from the Discover Hope trailer where we got an audio clip of what sounds like Cortana saying - “This… This is apart of me. I don’t know how but it is me.”

We also know from the trailer that the chips serial number is that same as Cortana’s just one iteration higher - ends in 30 rather than 29.

Now in the novel we are going back to Castle base… Here’s what I suspect. Blue team is going there to recover some means of creating a new Cortana - maybe a clone of Halsey’s brain or a replica of Cortana’s old data from her initial creation - Something - that will allow for the creation of a new Cortana model but kind of a blank slate.

Going a little further, if this is true, I suspect we will be traveling around Zeta Halo collecting and reintegrating fragments of Cortana with the newly created Cortana from what is found in Castle base.

2

That’s a pretty good theory. I think it’s obvious from the two trailers that we’ve gotten that Cortana is going to have some sort of redemption arc in this game. She literally goes from crying over vaporized humans and sacrificing herself to stop the Didact and save Chief in Halo 4 to literally quoting the Didact directly and killing probably thousands in Halo 5 without any sort of motivation explanation. So, this game has to do something to explain why our beloved AI assistant has turned into a genocidal maniac, and saying that she’s missing fragments after splitting herself in H4 would be a good way to do it.

3

Maybe they could use the missing fragments to create the trap chip, and then have the fragments pull her in, then having the fragments merge together, making her whole again.